What makes a good video interview? Some advice from our experts

Written by Nicolas Macheda

Congratulations! The company you’ve applied to has shortlisted you for a video interview! Now you probably either think “Hooorayyyyyy!” or “Ohh boy, here comes trouble…”. Fear not, video interviews can be quite intimidating at first (mostly if you’ve never experienced one), but ultimately this is the best chance you’ll get to score a face to face meeting. What makes a video interview good? Whether you are the candidate or the recruiter designing it, a good video screening can have an entirely different meaning. Let’s look into it together.

How to record a good video interview as a candidate?

Though we have a detailed section aiming to support candidates with their recording, there are a few easy things to keep in mind when going into your first video interview. The device you use, whether it’s your computer’s built-in camera, smartphone or professional camera, won’t make much of a difference. Nowadays, the average video quality of our devices has become more than enough for web uploading.

The first advice we can give you is to use a good microphone to record your voice. It is something YouTubers won’t tell you enough: a rusty looking video with great sound is better than a beautiful HD feed with terrible audio. Along with that, be aware of your attitude, set a tone of voice and don’t hesitate to add pauses to your speech.

Secondly, try to make friends with the light. Common mistakes candidates make when recording their video interview is to stand in front the camera with a light source (like a window) in the background. Make sure the light is facing you. Furthermore, you can stage your surroundings with objects you like to give subtle insights of your personality (i.e. a guitar sitting in the background might say much about your music taste or creativity).

Background matters when recording a good video interview, make it personal!

Now that you’re almost ready to record, let’s work on the content. You might have read in other articles that you should wear power suits, stand up, and so on… Well, not necessarily. If anything, you should mostly be well informed about the company and position you’re applying for. What image does the corporation reflect? Have you seen insights from the inside (company Instagram, social network of potential colleagues)? Underdressing might be a problem, but so is overdressing. Try to catch the general tone of the company and recruiter and adapt your discourse to it. Show them that you’re already fitting the team!

Then, the show begins. Be sure to cease every chance you get. What will make you an outstanding candidate won’t be the amount of keywords you will drop in 30 seconds. It will be the unique experiences and personality traits you show, the way you handled tricky situations or the things that make you happy in life. If a recruiter asks you a free question about yourself, don’t turn it all about work, use it to show a bit of yourself.

Our last advice would be to not overdo it. In the end, you have to be yourself. If you get hired for playing a part that doesn’t fit you, chances are you won’t stay long in the company…

What makes video interview good from the recruiter’s point of view?

Because there is so much at stake for a candidate submitting a video interview, crafting the right framework can be a challenge. What is your recruitment goal? What kind of talent are you looking for? Do you need to quickly parse through a high volume of applicants or is it the rare hire you’re looking for? With those questions in mind, you will be able to design a video recruitment strategy leading to a good video interview. Here is some general advice to find better candidates:

The Medium is the Message: using a video interview service to screen candidates says a lot about your company. It could say even more if the whole user interface was bearing your logo and colours. Don’t neglect branding as it gives a powerful message to candidates and help them sync their tone.

Make it personal: some services allow you to record questions using video yourself. While this function is often overlooked by companies, it is actually one of the best tool to improve candidate experience. This way, you can asynchronously make a connection with the candidate. Less stress induced equals more room for personality!

Don’t judge too hastily: not everybody is used to speaking in front of a camera. While audiovisual information gives great insights about a candidate’s aptitude to assess the world, the content should never be neglected. Find out more about unhealthy recruitment bias in our article ”Assumptions in screening – the mother of all screw ups!”

Needless to say that at Cammio we don’t expect you to be an expert in video recruitment. This is why all our clients are assigned a Client Success Manager to help them easily craft the best interview framework to fill their specific needs. The best part? Cammio is well integrated into most ATS’s (Workday, Taleo, SAP, …) thus making the user experience seamless!

I guess now you know all about what makes a good video interview ! If that made you curious about our technology, we’d be pleased to schedule a free demo to show you around! 🙂